


Just Looking

by Em_313



Series: Daisy [10]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Childhood, Cute Kids, Gen, Jack is a good dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:15:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22085506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_313/pseuds/Em_313
Summary: Nosy, bored 8-year-old Daisy stumbles upon artifacts of her father’s childhood.
Series: Daisy [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1134317
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	Just Looking

**August 1911**  
**Daisy 8, Elliot and Benji 5**

  
Daisy never meant to get in trouble. Trouble just seemed to find her.  
“Go find something to entertain ya self, Days,” Jack said impatiently. He was drawing at the kitchen table, and her mother had gone to visit Uncle Davey and Miss Rebecca’s new baby. Her brothers were playing tag in their small backyard, but that sounded boring. She’d read all of her books, dressed all of her dolls, and explored every single bit of the yard. Summer vacation was dragging on and on. Maybe she’d draw.  
“Daddy?” She said. She wanted to borrow his colored pencils.  
“I’m working, Daisy!”  
Fine. She’d find them herself.

  
Her parents’ room was airy and clean and full of sunshine. She knew as she opened the door that she wasn’t really supposed to be there. Twin night stands, each with two drawers, sat on either side of their huge bed. Maybe her dad kept art supplies in there.

  
Daisy found her mother’s floral lotion and rubbed it all over her arms. She pilfered through loose hair pins, sunglasses, cough drops, and three doodled-in notebooks but found no colored pencils. The last drawer was heavier than she expected.

  
A stiff cardboard book sat on top. Daisy opened it: a wedding photo. But it wasn’t her parents or grandparents or aunts. She’d never seen these people before. The man was tall, lean, and clean shaven with one hand in his pocket and the other resting on his wife’s shoulder. The woman seemed softer, sweeter. She had a kind, round face, blue eyes, and a cascade of dark hair under her simple lace veil. Daisy squinted at the narrow, handwritten card beneath the photo: _Patrick and Evelyn Kelly wed at Saint Jude Catholic Church March 5, 1881._

  
“Oh,” Daisy said to herself. “This must be Grandma and Grandpa Kelly.” It felt strange calling them that since they were so young in the picture and she never knew them. She saw her Grandpa and Grandma Pulitzer about once a month, and her cousins all attended the boys’ school across the street from hers. Grandma Kate insisted on a family picture of all of them every Christmas. But her dad _never_ talked about his family.

  
She studied Patrick’s face in the photo. His hair was parted at one side so it swooped across his forehead. His eyebrows were thick and straight, and his eyes were serious. It was hard to tell what color they were in the picture. Daisy thought he was handsome, but he didn’t look much like her dad.

  
She set the picture on the floor next to her and kept looking. A neatly folded quilt lay in the drawer. Daisy pulled it out and laid it across her lap. “Maybe it’s a baby blanket,” she mused. It wasn’t big enough for a whole bed. Nine little squares the color of cream were mounted on a faded red background. Each square was embroidered with swirls of colorful leaves and flowers, like they were dancing in the wind. Daisy gently touched a green leaf, a violet, a red rose. Every stitch was perfect, and every square was different. The corners were frayed with use. Daisy, who was rarely still, counted each leaf and flower, tracing the swirls with her finger over and over again. Who did this belong to?

  
There were a dozen scraps of newspaper with Jack’s distinctive pencil sketches. One showed a grinning boy with nine newsie caps stacked on his head. Another was of Charlie, Race, and Specs casually leaning against a brick wall. Uncle Race always had a cigar even as a kid. They were younger, thinner, sillier but they were definitely her uncles. A few showed a very tall boy Daisy didn’t recognize. A couple drawings were of a dirty place with crowded bunk beds and bugs on the floor. The boys in those pictures weren’t smiling.  
Footsteps pounded on the stairs. “Daisy?” Jack called.  
She froze. Her dad appeared at the doorway. “What are you doing?” He came closer, saw her surrounded by papers and the quilt across her lap. “Why are you going through my stuff? Ain’t ya got any sense of privacy?”  
Daisy jumped to her feet, and heard something rip underneath her. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said. She looked down. A drawing of the newsboys laying in a circle playing cards had torn at the corner.  
“Careful,Daisy!” Jack snapped. He shooed her away and began picking up his old drawings. “All this is old. Ya gotta be careful with it.”  
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Daisy repeated. Her lip quivered. “I was looking for colored pencils and I found all of this.”  
Jack sighed. “Ya mama barely knows all this is here.” He said. He set the papers on the table and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Oh, now, don’t cry. Show me what you found, ya nosy girl.”  
Daisy sniffled and picked up the wedding photo. “Is...is this your mama and your daddy?”  
Jack pulled Daisy into his lap. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. My da was a bricklayer like Uncle Tommy and Uncle Race. That’s my mama, Evelyn...God, she looks so young.” He shook his head. “She was just 19...no, no she’d just turned 20. Her birthday was in February, and they got married in March.”  
“She was pretty,” Daisy said.  
“Yeah, she was,” Jack said. “She made that quilt there.”  
“She did? It’s so beautiful.”  
“She made it when I was a baby,” he said. He reached for it. “My sister Ciara and I slept under it every night.”  
“You shared a room?”  
“Darlin’, we shared a bed.” He gently put a hand on her knee. “You and ya brothers are growing up a lot different from me, and that’s a good thing.”  
They flipped through the old drawings, and Jack pointed out each of the newsies by name.  
“Ah, I was hoping this one was in here,” Jack said as they reached the bottom of the pile. He held it up for Daisy. This sketch was different: it was the face of girl, a young woman. She looked away. Jack had drawn her cheeks and chin and long hair with soft, smooth lines. Her eyes were large and serious, but full of light.  
“That’s a pretty lady,” Daisy said.  
“Know who it is?”  
Daisy shook her head.  
“That’s your mama!” Jack said. “The day we met, I knew I loved her. She didn’t even like me yet, and told me to go away. But I drew this for her to remember who I was. And she’s kept it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year, friends! Posting from my phone while on vacation so sorry for any formatting issues. Hope you liked this one!


End file.
